1. Field of the Invention
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 851,136, filed Mar. 20, 1986, now abandoned.
The invention relates to an external catheter for male urinary incontinence. More specifically, the catheter comprises a soft, thin-walled, substantially cylindrical body portion which is open at one end and merges at the other end into a narrowed drainage tube portion to be connected with a collecting bag. The body portion being provided on its inside with an adhesive. The catheter is manufactured in accordance with the process set forth herein using a specially designed mandrel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Catheters of this kind are designed to be arranged as a condom on a penis in order to act as an aid against male incontinence in a safe manner free of leakage and with the fewest possible inconveniences to the users, who may be physically handicapped or elderly persons for whom greater openness concerning problems of incontinence has led to a growing demand for such aids.
In order to securely fasten the catheter various accessories can be used in the form, inter alia, of separate adhesive tapes, as known for U.S. Pat. No. 3,520,305, or adhesive linings wound around or attached to the penis prior to arrangement of the catheter as known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,187,851. Also, compressible hydrophilic or hydrophobic lining members are known from GB published patent specification No. 2,096,901.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,788,324 discloses a catheter of the above mentioned kind. This catheter has an adhesive on its inside, thereby eliminating the use of special fastening means. Due to the adhesive, this catheter is delivered in an unfolded condition, and in order to facilitate the arrangement it is slotted almost on the total length of the body portion. During the manufacture, the catheter must be turned inside out in respect of the application of adhesive, and it must therefore be turned outside in to use, which may damage the catheter. Due to the slotting, a gel-like adhesive is required capable of providing tightening against leakage of urine backwards from the end at the drainage tube.
GB patent No. 2,106,784 disclosed another design in which a pressure sensitive adhesive layer is applied to the outside of the body portion on an adhesive releasing layer of silicone rubber so that the adhesive layer will be transferred from the outside of the body portion to its inside when rolling up the catheter to be delivered in a rolled-up condition. The manufacture of this catheter is laborious in that subsequent to the forming of the body portion by immersing a mandrel into a latex solution, it is necessary to effect rinsing and drying prior to the application of the silicone rubber layer. Then this layer must be further hardened before the application of adhesive which may be troublesome due to poor adherence to the surface of the silicone rubber layer.